"But there is a thornier problem here. Many young people have absorbed a YouTube-centric worldview, including rejecting mainstream information sources in favor of platform-native creators bearing “secret histories” and faux-authoritative explanations.

When those creators propagate hoaxes and conspiracy theories as part of a financially motivated growth strategy, it seeps in with some percentage of their audience. And sometimes — in ways no algorithm could predict — it leads viewers to a much darker place.

It’s possible that YouTube can still beat back the flood of conspiracy theories coursing through its servers. But doing it will require acknowledging how deep these problems run and realizing that any successful effort may look less like a simple algorithm tweak, and more like deprogramming a generation."